EDITORIAL — Police protection

Two officers of the Philippine National Police were relieved from their posts amid accusations that they were facilitating possible settlements between relatives of some of the missing cockfight aficionados and the PNP members accused of involvement in the disappearance.

Maj. Reynaldo Pañebe Jr., who was officer-in-charge of the PNP Custodial Center where the accused cops are detained, and Highway Patrol Group spokesperson Lt. Nadame Malang were sacked on May 20 after they were named in complaints filed by relatives of some of the missing sabungeros.

The complaints, filed with the National Police Commission, alleged that someone from the camp of the accused mastermind, gaming tycoon Charlie “Atong” Ang, had approached the complainants and “encouraged” them to talk to Pañebe and Malang.

According to the complainants, three relatives of some of the 34 sabungeros who went missing between 2021 and 2022 had withdrawn their complaints in exchange for a monthly payment of P40,000. Ang is accused of ordering the sabungeros kidnapped and killed on suspicion that they were cheating in his cockfight operations.

If the accusations against Pañebe and Malang are true, it will validate long-held suspicions that Ang cannot be caught because law enforcers don’t want to catch him. He’s the goose that continues to lay the golden eggs for police scalawags despite a supposed manhunt for him.

It will explain why Ang remains at large, despite the P20-million bounty for his capture that the Department of the Interior and Local Government announced. All of his 17 co-accused have been arrested and are being held without bail for multiple counts of kidnapping with homicide and kidnapping with serious illegal detention.

Ang can easily match and top that P20 million, if reports are true that he is now engaged in e-sabong and other offshore gambling operations in the lawless border enclaves of Cambodia and Thailand.

Any law enforcement officer suspected of assisting him in hiding must be questioned and subjected to asset and lifestyle checks.

The government cannot penalize people who decide to drop their complaints. But this is a case that must be pursued even if some of the complainants have withdrawn. Failure to do so will breed impunity, with the perpetrators free to make a mockery of the law and commit the crime over and over again.